Kansas State coach Ron Prince grins while addressing media members. The Wildcats coach spoke at Big 12 Media Days on Tuesday in Kansas City, Mo.

Kansas State coach Ron Prince grins while addressing media members. The Wildcats coach spoke at Big 12 Media Days on Tuesday in Kansas City, Mo.

Kansas City, Mo. ? The grumbling heard in Manhattan these days has nothing to do with an unhappy fan base growing tired of waiting for the Kansas State football team to return to its powerhouse days of the past.

It could just be a few upset stomachs.

From head coach Ron Prince to defensive end Ian Campbell and quarterback Josh Freeman, the Wildcats in attendance at Day 2 of the Big 12 Media Days in Kansas City, Mo., Tuesday, talked pointedly about being disgusted, sickened even, by the way the team played down the stretch last year.

Standing at 5-3 heading into November, K-State lost its final four games, including road losses to Iowa State and Fresno State, and finished 5-7, on the outside of the bowl picture looking in.

“I get sick to my stomach thinking about how we played the last half of the season,” Campbell said. “I get sick of saying it. But defense definitely is the key for us this year. Our offense put up plenty of points (last year) but our defense wasn’t able to deliver. I don’t think that’ll be the case this year, but I can talk about it all I want. It doesn’t matter until we do it.”

Viewed by many as a critical season for Ron Prince’s future at KSU, the Wildcats enter 2008 with high hopes and visions of returning to the level they reached under Bill Snyder.

There are plenty of reasons to question whether they can get there. All-Big 12 wideout Jordy Nelson is gone, the team’s tailback position is unstable at best, and the 2008 schedule includes road games at Louisville, Texas A&M, Kansas and Missouri. But Prince, entering his third season, said his squad was prepared to battle anyone in the country because of its experience.

“We have at most maybe one or two sophomores in the two-deep,” Prince said. “Other than that, we have a bulk of seniors and juniors who have all won at a pretty high level.”

Add to that an enormous flood of junior college talent and it’s no wonder Prince believes his team will be as tried and tested as any.

Away from the defense, perhaps the biggest key to the Wildcats resurgence is the presence of Freeman. A junior from Kansas City, Mo., Freeman finds himself a bit of a forgotten man in the Big 12. In a league that includes quarterbacks named Daniel, Reesing, Bradford, Harrell and McCoy, the 6-foot-6, 250-pound Wildcat often gets overlooked by national pundits. That’s largely because of the talent the others possess and also because Freeman is more of a pro-style quarterback as opposed to a wizard of the spread offense.

In his own camp, Freeman hardly is a forgotten man.

“I think he’s on the top of the list,” said K-State safety Chris Carney when asked where Freeman ranks when stacked up against his Big 12 counterparts. “Experience and maturity make everyone better and that’s what has happened for him.”

Prince agreed, saying there’s not a quarterback in the country he’d rather have in his huddle and that another year of experience can only help the entire team.

“I have so many grey hairs in my goatee that I’m embarassed to grow it out,” he said. “But that’s just experience. And experience counts.”

It’s fair to say that another late-season stretch – one that starts with Oklahoma and takes K-State to Lawrence and Columbia, Mo., before winding up back at home with Nebraska – will dictate where Kansas State ends up this season. If things go the way Freeman and the rest of the Wildcats expect, this four-game run could be the start of something special, not the end of something awful.

“This year we have a very strong backbone,” Freeman said. “And the way we see it, if you’re not rowing with us you either need to get out of the boat, or, if you’re unable to row, we’ll pull you along with us. You have to have everybody rolling in the same direction if you’re going to have success.”